Honor Among Men

Discussion: Honor of the Queen (Honor Harrington Book 2) by David Weber

This is a discussion because I've read this book far too many times to "review" it. Weber's Harrington is just beginning her naval career, fresh from her triumph On Basilisk Station¹. She's about to meet the intransigently paternal, religious societies of Grayson and Masada, where Honor must serve with, and command, men ill-prepared to cope with strong, capable women.

Contrasting forces and philosophies abound in this novel: diplomacy vs. military action; strong religious beliefs vs. religious fanaticism; even environmental technology vs. Luddite anti-techs.

Diplomacy

Honor commands a task group, in support of a diplomatic mission headed by once-Admiral Raoul Courvosier, whose mission is to bring Grayson into alliance with the Kingdom of Manticore. (At this point in Weber's Honorverse, although Manticore has a protectorate in the Basilisk system, it is still a single-system kingdom.) Honor can whole-heartedly support Courvosier, despite her suspicion that diplomacy is a sneaky way to achieve something, because she respects his tactical experience. 

War may represent the failure of diplomacy, but even the best diplomats operate on credit. Sooner or later someone who's less reasonable than you are is going to call you, and if your military can't cover your I.O.U.s, you lose.

Others in the diplomatic mission are not as respectable; in fact, one of Honor's long-running enmities is about to develop as she deals with a nit-wit diplomat who seems to believe that his touchy-feely assumptions about the Grayson-Masada conflict ought to be considered. In the character of Reginald Houseman, Weber was ahead of his times, writing about "snowflakes" before the type was recognized.

Religion

I often think of the opposed religious groups portrayed in this novel when I see entire religions tainted by the perfervid actions of a tiny minority within them. Grayson's society may have a religion at its base, but it is also a balanced, constitutional polity. When we and Honor first encounter Grayson, women are treated more as near-adult children: they are to be protected, guided, and treasured. In contrast, Masada's women are chattel. 

Many reviewers have cited the black-and-white nature of Weber's characters. Good guys are all good, bad guys are not just opposed, they are evil. So here in this novel, the Graysons are revealed as capable of learning to respect Honor and, by extension, others in the Manticoran navy who are, or are commanded by, women. 

If Captain Harrington is as outstanding an officer as you believe—as I believe—she invalidates all our concepts of womanhood. She means we're wrong, that our religion is wrong. She means we've spent nine centuries being wrong.

Technology

Weber sets up the story of Grayson and Masada with a pair of ironies. First, Grayson was settled directly from Earth as a religious colony, pro-environment, anti-technology "true believers." Arriving at Yeltsin's Star, they found a lovely, blue-green world—that was poison to human life. They did not discover this fault until they had already, literally, burned their boats. A second world in the Yeltsin system, Masada, with its less-welcoming climate, was out of their reach once they made land-fall on Grayson.

The colonists spent the next generations battling their environment, gradually re-acquiring space flight, and needing the technology they had rejected back on Earth simply to survive. After a schism divides them into the few, fanatic "Faithful" and the larger original colony with their adapted belief in appropriate technology, Grayson decides to use their limited space flight to move the Faithful to Masada.

The Faithful on Masada could now re-abandon technology and revert to the original belief system. But they do not, because now they are focused on reclaiming the original world of the colony and substituting their belief for that of Grayson, whom they call "The Apostate."


I find the technology and religion themes comforting to re-read, especially as I am aware of how they will play out again in later novels in the series. With so many similar conflicts in today's news, I reflect, with David Weber, on the need for open discussion:

There are two sides to every dialogue, but if you accept the other side's terms without demanding equal time for your own, then they control the debate and its outcome.

Liner Notes

1. I discussed On Basilisk Station in the post The Beginning of Honor.
2. I prefer the older cover illustrations by David Mattingly. The recent editions in paper- and hardcover are distressingly spare, focused on Harrington's image—and Nimitz is nowhere to be seen!